These Useless Feelings
by Mark of the Asphodel
Summary: For years she felt longing without hope of fulfillment.  Now Catria has him- or he has her- and absolutely nothing is resolved by it.  Marth/Catria, rated for adult content.


**These Useless Feelings**

I do not own _Fire Emblem_ or any of its characters.

WARNING: This is a Marth/Catria story with implied Marth/Caeda occurring in the past. And it's not romantic in the slightest. If this is not to your liking, please don't read it.

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><p>He began the way he always did, slipping one hand to the back of her head to unpick the ribbon that bound up her hair. Catria watched the discarded strip of cloth fall to the floor, a pale worm against the dark carpet. She shivered as the unbound hair spilled down around her neck and shoulders.<p>

He liked her hair, liked to play with it by running his hands through it or by making little braids, twining the dark strands around his graceful fingers. He did so now, and Catria closed her eyes and tried to just concentrate on the feeling of those fingers brushing against her scalp, the feeling of shared warmth from simply being next to him.

He was waiting on her; she could sense the tension that lay beneath the silence. She cleared her throat and wished that she had something clever in her mind, that she had _anything _in her mind outside of apprehension and a very base desire. She wished that _he_ would say something, that he would use that beautiful voice to put images into her mind, images that might in turn drive Catria to do what he wanted.

He wanted her to talk. He wanted Catria to say witty things, provocative things. It didn't matter what else she might do with her lips and tongue, what she might do with her own fingers or how compliant she might be in all other ways, if she didn't engage him with words he would be... disappointed. Unfulfilled. Left wanting.

No matter what Catria did, whether she jotted down pungent court gossip or studied old paintings and tapestries to find something that might be _exciting_, she felt that she never quite satisfied him with her second-hand witticisms. And so, each time they lay together felt like nothing so much as a chore. As work. She had to _work_ to make him happy, straining her mind so hard that she didn't fully enjoy what he did to her body. The more her mind spun, churning out sentences that were honestly quite shocking, the less she noticed... the less she seemed to feel.

And so it went like this. He lay beneath her, still toying with strands of her hair as she crouched on top of him, looking down upon him and and wishing he would just roll her over onto her back and fuck her. If this elaborate ritual of making _talk_ was part of what making love was about, Catria would rather have a good hard fucking until her spinning mind went empty.

Then again, he wasn't really making love to her. He was making love to someone with a slim, graceful body, with small quick hands and firm rounded breasts, with a cascade of long hair the color of the gentian blossom. And since Catria fit those requirements, he also expected her to have a silver tongue and sparkling wit.

She bent down over him and began to lick at the lobe of his ear and nibble at his jawline. If she was doing something else with her lips, she couldn't be faulted for not talking. He responded to this, and she felt his fingers at the nape of her neck, caressing her as though this would somehow loosen a flood of obscene brilliance from her mind and tongue. Catria tensed her thighs and pressed her body against his so that her face was nestled in the curve of his shoulder; she placed there kisses that reddened the skin simply to keep her mouth busy.

He was murmuring something indistinct to her now, and she could feel his hands tracing patterns down her back, fingers making a light dance along her spine. It would have been wonderful if her mind weren't chattering all the while- _don't make me talk, please don't ask me to talk._

A bolt of desperation made her sit upright, arching her back as she ground her hips against him. She could feel that long swirl of hair falling around her, and she threw out her arms and tossed her head so that her hair tumbled around like a mare's mane. These gyrations did the trick; she heard his sharp intake of breath, felt his hands grip her shoulders, pressing her down upon him as the muscles inside of her began to pulse in a rhythm she couldn't entirely control.

She wasn't panicking now, wasn't even really thinking. Her mind was emptying out like a sky swept free of clouds. She was only skin and sinew and nerve endings, raw and alive, rippling like a banner in the wind. She heard herself gasp as he thrust up into her, felt her throat burn with a cry as he pulled her down by both arms, holding her fast through one sustained spasm.

He let go, and she rolled away and onto her side, pressing her wet thighs together. She curled up against him, skin to skin, and she felt one of his hands again drag through the tangles of her hair.

"Caeda... I love you."

So great was her longing to hear those words, low and soft and blurred by oncoming sleep, that it didn't matter how and why they came to her. It didn't matter when she was like this, exposed and shivering as the sweat dried upon her skin.

"I love you, too... Marth."

Those words, whatever their worth, came freely.

**The End**

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><p><em>Author's Note<em>: I used to really, really like this pairing, but in light of FE12, this is what comes to mind.


End file.
